


Conversations at the End of the World

by keire_ke



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:13:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4691684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the very end, the old souls still have time for a short conversation. One would thing they'd curb the sarcasm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversations at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [obstinatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Nicht Neues Im Westen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2698226) by [obstinatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix). 



> Thank you to Obstinatrix, for providing the lovely inspiration for this piece, and also to K, for the gracious read-through, despite her own deadlines looming! This is also something I have been thinking about, a lot, after DOFP: the metaphysics of Kitty's powers. I hope I did both justice!

"You don't want this war to end," Charles whispers, and his voice is so soft, so tender, that for a moment Erik doesn't even register it; the words come to him as though on their own, as though they are buoyed up on stormy waves. It is the sentiment hidden in them that gives him pause, and lets him notice the alien will behind it. Charles is there, Erik thinks and his mind settles, the foreign wisp of thought caressing and falling away without judgement.

Erik can't find it within himself to smile, but he feels a spark of humor brighten up the dark corners of his psyche nonetheless. "Sixty years now you have lectured me about the futility of thinking in absolutes, and here at the very end you succumb yourself? For shame, Charles."

"I'm not without a flare for the dramatic, myself," Charles says, a faint patina of humor in place of what would once have been a playful lilt.

"I haven't forgotten."

"I never thought you did." The hover chair aligns with the shelf Erik claimed for his bed, so that Charles can look down and behold the mighty Magneto at rest. "You must forgive me, I didn't intend to be taken literally."

"You weren't. I do want the war to end," Erik says, although the words are slow to form, slow to rise to the surface and barely touch the air. "I want—I would say I was tired of watching people die around me, but I grew tired of that when I was a child."

"I know," Charles tells him quietly. He nudges Erik's side and moves from the chair onto the narrow ledge. It's uncomfortable and hardly a suitable bed for two elderly men, whose bones aren't what they used to be, but there is comfort radiating from having Charles' body near his and Erik revels in it. "I understand."

"Do you?" Erik says, perhaps more sharply than he ought. Even now, at the very end, it seems like he can't stop himself from challenging.

"You fear forgetting."

Erik closes his eyes and lets his head tip back. Of course, even now, at the very end, it seems like Charles can't stop himself from knowing better.

"Do I?"

Charles scowls. "Must you? Even now?"

"A cocky young man once told me he knew everything about me. One would expect he would have seen this coming."

"He wasn't wrong and he is not surprised, just exasperated," Charles says, letting out a long huff of breath.

Erik doesn't respond for a long while, and when he does he takes great care to string the words into a coherent line. "Suppose this works, Charles. What then? What happens to us?" He can't see Charles looking at him. There's barely any light in the room, anyway, but then Charles hardly needs his eyes to watch him. Erik can't see because he won't make himself look, when the ceiling holds so much appeal.

"We will cease to exist, I expect," Charles answers. "We will die. Does that scare you?"

"Aren't you reading my mind?"

"Would you like me to?"

"You know you're welcome."

"Yet sometimes I want to hear you speak, too."

"One would think you'd grow tired of hearing my voice."

"After fifty years of hearing you monologue once every couple of years, obviously."

Erik chuckles, deep in his chest. "There's no guarantee we will make anything better."

"No."

"We will erase this… horror," Erik continues, and his hand finds Charles'. "It will not be remembered. What if it will simply happen again?"

"Have faith," Charles whispers. "Have faith, Erik."

"Charles…"

"It might happen. I'm not denying it. There's no changing people. Not by force."

"Says the man who can."

Charles huffs. "Didn't we have that chat already?"

"More than once. I'm old, you can't expect my memory to not flake."

"I'll ask Storm to write the important things down for you, sometime."

"Do not come to me for help when a lightning strikes you on your way back."

"I promise," Charles says with a chuckle. "Erik, I know. I understand. But… where we are now, there's no coming back. This world is dead, our world is dead, barren. Even if we could end this war today, the destruction is simply too all-encompassing. Yes, the world itself may survive, but humanity is lost. It's all we can do to give ourselves, our species, another try."

"Never thought I'd live to see the day tearing the world down and rebuilding it is _your_ plan."

"I may have grown as a person."

"Yes, the apocalypse would do that."

The dust motes dance across the ceiling, and into the ensuing silence Charles breathes one simple admission: "I'm scared. I don't want to die."

"Again?"

"Erik."

"Sorry."

Charles shakes his head, and a soft huff of his breath brushes past Erik's chin. "I fear nonexistence. Even now, knowing what the alternative is, I fear death."

"Here's where religion comes in handy."

"I wish."

"After a lifetime of putting your faith in the imaginary…"

"And look where that brought me," Charles says, his fingers tightening against the armor Erik wouldn't part with, not even in his sleep.

"Should we advise Logan to convey your solemn wish to go to war with the human race?" Erik doesn't even bother lacing the words with sarcasm, just lies back and enjoys the intrinsic irony.

"That's just the thing," Charles says. "It's not impossible. Erik, I was different then. In 1973 I would have gone to war if I'd been forced to care about the world outside."

"Shame I was in prison at the time."

"Do not joke about this."

Erik sighs from the depths of his chest. "I can't see you ever resorting to war."

"What do you call our predicament, then?"

"Charles… there is no force on this earth that would persuade you to begin a war," Erik says with the finality of a mountain settling into its bed, yet a part of him that feels, ever so faintly, the tremble of Charles' thought knows that he is not convinced.

"Your optimism astounds me."

"Now here's a statement I haven't heard very often. Never, in fact."

"With, as you'd say, good reason."

"Thank you for that."

Charles settles against his side, the smooth top of his head resting against Erik's cheek. The faint glow coming through the windowpanes colors the walls, the stone and iron, bathing their little enclave in beautiful kaleidoscopic light.

"You had hair in the seventies," Erik says.

Charles takes a moment to reflect. "I think so. It's been so long since I had to use shampoo, I honestly don't remember."

"You looked good with hair."

"Thank you for that, dear."

"It's a fond memory, that's all."

"I also had a mansion and friends who were a lot less dead."

"I expect it must have been a hardship, letting all that go."

"Whatever shall we do with a glorious, unburdened future?" Charles asks, and his hand curls into Erik's.

Erik attempts to stretch and winces when his bones creak with the effort. "Be honest with yourself, Charles: we're sending Logan armed with the knowledge of the future, the task at hand is not complex. All he needs is to locate our past selves, guide them through stopping a single assassin, after which he is free to kick back and let the forces of history to take hold."

"Your faith in Logan is, frankly, astounding."

"I have the utmost faith in Logan's ability to conduct himself accordingly with the seriousness of this mission," Erik says gravely. It doesn't surprise him that he is serious. "Us, on the other hand… It is a simple plan, requiring a modicum of self-restraint and a smidge of common sense. I expect, between the two of us, we'll find a way to ruin it."

Charles laughs at that, with all of his bright, kaleidoscopic soul, permeating Erik's mind with peals of his laughter, and that's how Storm finds them, when it's time. Charles holds his hand until he needs to move into his chair, and even though Erik knows however this ends, whatever the future becomes, they will die, he feels a brightness in his chest, something small, yet luminous, and warm.

He feels hope.

THE END


End file.
